Boone County has spent $1.8 million this year to house inmates outside of county, plans for new facility in early talks
Erika McGuire
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Overcrowding at the Boone County Jail is costing the county, with officials now housing more inmates in out-of-county facilities than in the jail itself.
According to Cpt. Brian Leer with the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, the county has spent more than $1.8 million so far this year on housing inmates in other counties and is on track to hit $2 million by the end of the year.
Previous reporting says from Jan 10-May 23 of this year, the county had spent $461,235 to house detainees in other counties, meaning the cost has tripled in the second half of the year.
As of Nov. 21, Leer said there were 403 inmates in the Boone County Jail system, with 177 housed in the local jail and 226 housed in other Mid-Missouri counties. On May 22, the county was paying to house 113 detainees in other county jails.
The cost to house a single inmate in another county jail is $50-$60 a day, according to Leer.
The overcrowding can be problematic as it puts added pressure on partner agencies and Boone County staff who help manage the movement of inmates between facilities, Leer said.
“Agencies like Montgomery County, part of our agreement is they come and get them and transport them back and forth for us. It’s been a really good partnership,” Leer said. “It does present problems though because we’ve got to find staff to do these transports and some of our folks will work overtime just to do the transport,”
U.S. Marshals currently have three inmates from Boone County. Two juveniles have been remanded to the county but are being held at the Juvenile Justice Center and six inmates are being housed at a St. Louis hospital for mental-health-related issues.
There has been a steady increase in overcrowding since the COVID-19 pandemic, Leer said, with many factors playing a role, especially mental-health backlogs.
“Court proceedings, a lot of cases get continued, then we see a longer delay a lot of times in cases being adjudicated as well as mental health,” Leer said. ” We’ve got several folks back there waiting on mental health beds that we just can’t send them anywhere because they don’t have a bed for them. Somebody may be in here for six months and they’re deemed incompetent by the court.”
Leer claims the higher intake of detainees can be linked to a number of factors, including Boone County’s population increasing. The Boone County Jail aims to keep 10-15 beds available for intake everyday, limiting the number of inmates it can house at a given time. Keeping certain inmates separated is also a driving factor.
County officials have started discussions about a new, larger facility that meets demand.
While the project is still in the early stages, Leer said he expects the project to cost between $200-$300 million, with hopes of the facility having extra resources compared to the current facility that was built back in 1990.
“We would maybe have like a mental health wing or floor within the facility as well as have a lot more space,” Leer said. “It’s going to take years to even think about and get a plan. Let alone the years of production as far as getting things produced to then be shipped here then to be built,”
A new facility would likely have between 1,000-1,200 beds, roughly four times the capacity of the current jail, which can hold 246 inmates.
“You have to plan for the future so there’s just a lot of logistics to go through and plan, long-term housing, how is the county going to fund it?… If you start that funding process now, at what point would you be able to break ground and actually build a facility? There’s so much in discussion going on right now,” Leer said.